Nearly half of Americans die with virtually no financial assets left, a new study reports. But is that always such a bad thing? Consider a financial life in which you amass exactly the amount of money you need, and run out of cash the day you die.

The cost of filing for bankruptcy has risen in recent years as a result of the 2005 Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act, which aimed to reduce the number of bankruptcies by adding more requirements to the filing process.

A new study says top-performing teachers turn out students who learn more than the students who had the worst teachers. And that extra learning has a huge impact on earnings -- and the nation's economy. Still, some educational experts say the study raises more questions than it answers.

Highly skilled women will lose about a quarter of a million dollars, or as much as a third of their lifetime earnings, by choosing to have a child, making the prospect of raising a family a far more expensive one for college grads than their less-educated counterparts, a new study shows.

Despite what so many pundits say, the most accurate economic predictor -- the yield curve -- says we're not heading for a double-dip recession. But don't celebrate too much: We're still in the recession that started in 2007, and projections predict continued sluggish growth ahead.

Is the U.S. recession officially over? It may very well be, after the world's largest economy surged a better-than-expected 5.7% in Q4, on inventory gains, the U.S. Commerce Department said, to make it two consecutive quarters of GDP growth -- historically long enough for the National Bureau of Economic Research to declare an end to a slump.